


Foreground

by BlueColoredDreams



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drunk flirting, Flirting, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Violence, Multi, Pining, Sexual Harassment, Spoilers up to ep.62
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 10:04:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10942233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueColoredDreams/pseuds/BlueColoredDreams
Summary: Lucretia's two for two in bar fights. Lup throws a game of pool. Everyone else takes a losing bet.





	Foreground

**Author's Note:**

> Just a disclaimer: I only have a vague idea of how eight-ball works, so. Yikes? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> Me and my partner were tossing around fun lupcretia ideas and I had to write it. Had to. Don't make the rules. Some shit got jossed already but!! that's the risk!  
> Post beach world, pre-episode 63. Canon divergence bc it seems like Barry hasn't??? gotten his shit together after beach world.

They try to vaguely disguise the fact that they’re having a night out by calling it reconnaissance: Certainly, there is _some_ reconnaissance going on. How else to get the feel of a world that, for all intents and purposes, is similar enough to their own to make them all homesick in ways they’d long left behind, than to get hammered at the seediest, darkest, smokiest looking bar in the not-quite-a-city, not-quite-a-town they’d seen the Light fall into?

It’s enough like their last night at home that they all looked at each other, shrugged, and ordered the largest things they could. And then they split off to do their own things, their own ways. Mostly, they're just out to have a good time, pick up local information that would help them, and get plastered. 

Even though the bar is a filthy place, sticky floors and sticky chairs and cloudy glasses, it's _busy_. There's a live band in the corner stage, and the floor is mostly cleared for the crowd to dance and mingle for them. There's enough smoke to be slightly worrisome, and low enough lighting to trick people into thinking it was atmospheric. Everyone seems to know each other, or, if they didn't, they seemed to make friends pretty easy. 

She sits at the bar, peppering the bartender for info like she’s a tourist. Somewhere behind her, she hears Taako and Lup shouting as they hustle their way through a pool tournament. From the corner of her eye she sees Magnus above the press of the crowd—the rest are with him, she thinks.

She tucks her ankles behind the footrest of the stool so she won’t kick them like a child.  It’s so tempting to—she can’t reach the floor in the barstool, and the boots she’d borrowed from Lup are too heavy soled to keep her feet still in them. She wishes she could have worn her own clothes out, but Lup  _had_ insisted and even spelled them so they would fit, and so Lucretia capitulated easily.

“Anything… strange happen around here?” she asks the bartender as he comes back around to check on how she’s doing.

He tops off her sangria from a metal pitcher, a large slice of orange tumbling out and splashing wine against the warped wooden bar counter. She doesn’t complain, though. She’s already had one of them, in a big bowl-like glass that’s enough to float several circles of oranges side by side. She’s no longer anxious about striking up strange conversations and not concerned with sticky counters and fingers. 

“Strange shit happens all the time here. Small town effect,” the bartender says with a shrug. “Why you asking?”

“I’m writing a book,” she says, a well-practiced and worn line. Technically, she is. She does better when she’s telling the truth, or some version of it. She can’t spin tales like the others; she always ends up forgetting some important background detail. “Local phenomenon. Would have started… ah, a few weeks ago. Bright lights, auras. We’re following something—a lead.”

“Like, that show with the guy,” the bartender says. “Ghost Adventures, right?”

“Sure,” Lucretia says, instead of saying _I don’t know what the fuck that is._

He gives her a scrutinizing once over. Lucretia has the distinct feeling he's looking for something, and finds her lacking in it. “Fuck if I know, lady.”

“ _Well_.”

She sighs as the bartender walks off, fishing a piece of orange out of her drink with her straw. She chews on it idly, hoping the others are at least enjoying themselves. She wiggles, swinging the creaky seat around as she balances her bowl-cup in both hands so she can watch them.

Like always, they've already gathered crowds, unable to behave any way but rowdy. She grins to herself, watching in satisfaction as she picks each one of them out of the faceless crowd. She can always find them, she’s proud to think, no matter where they end up. 

Lup and Taako are well into a game of pool, their opponents’ faces pinched tight with frustration. Merle is standing on a table near the back of the press of people gathered for the band, probably apotheosizing or something equally terrible, while Barry and Davenport pretend they don't know him—even though Merle is standing on their shared table and they're snickering into their mugs of beer. 

As she watches Magnus easily win arm wrestling contest after contest, she becomes aware of the man lurking beside her. She shakes her head with the pretext of tossing her bangs out of her face, causing them to fall against her brow, hiding her eyes from him as she peeks over.

 _Oh geesh_ , she thinks. He watches her hungrily, mouth curled into a half smirk.

_Yikes and crackers._

She brings her drink up to her mouth, sipping on it like she’s not noticed him standing there. She pushes her feet against the stool, wine bitter in her mouth as the scrape of a bar stool echoes against her ears. She can’t ignore him for long, now.

She has half a mind to just get up and leave—he hasn’t spoken to her and if she leaves, the worst that will happen is that she gets followed and then Magnus punches a guy in the face. The other half cringes internally at just how rude it would be to up and leave, and really, just because he's there doesn't mean he's going to hit on her. In the half second it takes for her to have the internal debate, the universe decides for her.

“That’s an awful lot of wine for a little thing like you.”

Lucretia looks at the dingy can-lit ceiling in silent frustration-based prayer. She looks at the guy, who looks smug like he’s said something incredibly intelligent, and then turns back to her drink.

“I like wine,” she says simply. “So it’s not. Thanks.”

She forgoes using her straw, taking a large, careful drink from the overlarge glass. She holds a piece of ice in her cheek, chewing it slowly.

She meets eyes with Taako from across the room. She makes a small cutting gesture at her waist and purses her lips in the pretense of chewing on her piece of ice. Taako bumps elbows with Lup, who looks up from the pool table. He turns then, and puts the cue down and trots off into the crowd.

Lucretia swallows hard, but notes that Lup keeps to the side of the pool table where she can keep an eye on the bar. Lucretia thinks she actually sees Lup throw a shot on purpose, hitting the ball too hard to make it bounce up off the table so she wouldn’t have to move. 

“Wine? Psh, who comes to a bar for wine; let me buy you something. There’s a house beer—”

“No thanks,” Lucretia says, kicking her feet out finally. She turns back towards the bar, setting her cup down. She looks down the bar for the bartender. “I don’t mix drinks.”

She taps her fingers against the bar, jaw clenched. The bar stool next to her scrapes again and she’s suddenly very aware that her personal space is very much being invaded. The man smells like cigarette smoke and sweat and a copious amount of beer; Lucretia keeps her eyes fixed on the bottles behind the bar.

“Where are you from, sweetheart?” he asks, “Ain’t seen no one who looks like you before.”

Lucretia sighs through her nose, fingers pausing the absent rhythm as she silently counts in her head. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” she lies.

“Aren’t you all proper?” he laughs. “You’re definitely something foreign, some exotic import—“

“I am a human being, thank you,” she snaps. She grips the stem of her glass, trying to not think of the implications behind his words. There's something incredibly ironic here—she's the furthest away from home, years and miles and dimensions away from her hometown, and yet she's hearing the same goddamn shit.

“You sure? Maybe you’re just sayin’ that,” the guy says, like he’s flattering her. “Never seen anyone like you, looking so good alone at a shit bar. You get left by somebody, sweetheart? Looking for somebody? I can keep you company.”

She looks over at the man, mouth pinched up in disgust. She can tell he’s absolutely smashed, but that doesn’t account for outright dickishness, just the immediate lack of body-language reading ability. She knows she’s putting out ‘don’t fuck with me’ vibes and he’s still coming onto her. Why, is the question: She supposes in an objective sense, he’s attractive and probably used to getting what he wants, but she’s so entirely disgusted by how he’s acting that she knows her judgement is skewed towards dead river rat and over-entitlement. Maybe he thinks she's drunk as a skunk, and that's why he's so insistent with her.

She’s not drunk, and she wouldn’t be interested even if she were.

“I’d like to be left alone, actually,” she says firmly. “I’m not interested.”

“Maybe I can persuade you to be,” he says, patting her hand sympathetically. “Show you all those weird sights you were lookin’ to see. You want lights? I can give you _lights_.”

She tries to tug her hand away, but he grabs on, fingers tight around her wrist.

“I am not interested,” she says again, pulling on her hand. “Please leave me alone. Let me _go_.”

His grip tightens in response, his nails digging against the flesh of her wrist as he gives his hand a small twist; she gives a small gasp of pain. He says something else, but she doesn’t really register how disgusting it actually is until a moment has passed and his hand comes to rest on her knee.

She does it without thinking:

One second the man's hands are on her and he's saying something absolutely repulsive and the next she's slinging her drink into his face, and her glass with it, and she swings as he staggers. Fist closed, thumb out, knuckles angled, and arm straight, her body weight behind the swing—it comes to her like second nature now, but every time she still hears Magnus’s voice in the back of her mind, _aim for the throat and keep momentum_ , he’d told her ages and ages ago now—and then the man’s down.

She raises her foot and slams the heavy rubber sole of her borrowed boots right into his stomach. She wants to stomp on his hands too, retribution for not keeping them to himself but a hand clamps over her shoulder, large and familiar.

“Hey, man, you might want to beat it,” Magnus says to the man as he scrambles up once he’s done gasping and retching on the dirty floor at their feet.

“Are you with this crazy bitch?! Control your fuckin’ whore you goddamn son of a—”

“I said _you might want to fucking beat it_ ,” Magnus repeats.

Another hand is on her elbow— Merle, who tugs her back as Magnus steps between them, the man still hurling obscenities at her and at Magnus, and Lucretia thinks dimly that maybe she should have aimed for his jaw with her foot. It’s not too late, actually—

Lucretia struggles against Merle, and bumps into Barry, who puts a hand on her back.

“C'mon, c'mon,” he murmurs. “Let’s go. C’mon.”

“Lucretia, geesh,” Merle says, looking behind them as Barry pushes Lucretia away, towards where Lup and Taako have set up court at the pool table. “I'm sensin' a pattern here with you and bars. Good thing Taako came and got us.”

“The first time was an accident,” Lucretia says to Merle, surprised to find herself panting. “This time... he fucking deserved it.”

“ _Shit_ ,” Merle mumbles.

Lup rushes to meet them, grabbing Lucretia's wrists. “Are— what happened?!” she demands. “You fucking wrecked him, are you okay, you wouldn’t normally—”

“I, I don't—” Lucretia stammers, heart hammering. She feels strangely weak all of a sudden, mouth trembling. She hears Magnus over the chatter of crowds and too-loud music, and an indistinct shout. She looks over her shoulder just in time to see Magnus pick the man up by his collar. She catches a glimpse of Davenport by his side, his face pinched angrily as he looks between Magnus and the bartender, gesturing in frustration.

She's absolutely mortified, she realizes. She’s absolutely, completely, thoroughly _mortified_ —she’s made a scene and disturbed everyone else from their evenings and she’s gone and worried them all. 

 “I—he—I,” she says faintly, blinking rapidly.

“Okay, okay,” Lup answers, “Come with me. Let’s get you out of here for a second.”

“No, I'm fine—”

“Yeah, _right_. C’mon,” Lup commands, gently dragging Lucretia through the crowds towards the dinky restrooms. The women's room is a single stall ordeal with three locks on the door, which Lup does up with a deft quickness that Lucretia doesn't think her trembling hands could handle.

She feels the alcohol and the embarrassment and the shock of what she’d done all at once. She inhales the stale air to keep herself from crying. She's been alive for some fifty-odd years now— she's no longer a young woman in a class and field alone facing smirks and snide comments out of sides of mouths. She's a fighter, she's a member of the IPRE, and she has friends who love and care for her. She’s fought battles that she’d never dreamed she’d be capable of even living through—and at one point, wasn’t. She’s more than she was before, and she shouldn’t be shaken by this at all; comparatively, it’s probably the easiest fight she’s thrown a punch in in years.

But she feels fifteen all over again, afraid to walk home after dark. She's twenty, afraid to speak up in class; twenty-two and dealing with vitriol and slurs at the publication of her first biography, a highly contentious piece with newly declassified information, with her editor shaking his head and telling her to pull her name from her future projects, to have them all published under pseudonyms and as autobiographies, _to save us the trouble_. She’s twenty-five and joining the Institute in a class of all men; twenty-nine and thankful that she's not the only woman selected for the mission on the _Starblaster_. She’s thirty and two cycles older and still a bit intimidated by the people around her, even though they’d already survived the impossible twice over.

And now she’s crying in a shitty restroom because she’d forgotten just how it felt to be treated like some object, and because she’s embarrassed her friends think it’s a big deal she punched a guy.

“Lucretia, what happened?” Lup asks gently, reaching out to brush Lucretia's hair from her face.

“Nothing.”

“You not only doused a man but decked and nearly curb stomped him— that's not nothing. For me? Maybe nothing. Depends—but for you, it's not nothing.”

She shakes her head again, Lup’s palm warm against her cheek. “It’s really, it’s really nothing,” she says, hands fluttering nervously at her waist.

Lup eyes her over, noticing the dark marks against her wrist. She inhales sharply and her hand drops away from Lucretia’s face. “Oh _shit_ ,” she breathes. “Lu, I’m—I went and grabbed you right after—”

She can’t help the half-sob that escapes her—she’s embarrassed and shaken, but she’s also ecstatic, she realizes. It hits her like a train, and she sniffles, shoulders shaking as Lup apologizes, her voice startled and strained, but she’s not crying anymore, not really—she’s laughing and she’s happy, and she’s _relieved_.  

She’s so, _so_ grateful that her friends all came to her side almost instantly after just the slightest motion from her. She realizes the feeling with a warm rush that settles behind her breast and makes her shake; they all came. All of them. They came for her.

She hadn’t realized she was scared that they wouldn’t. But they _did_ , and she is so happy.

Lucretia shakes her head again, twisting her fingers together before she reaches out and presses her fingertips to Lup’s knuckles.  “No, you… you’re fine,” she says quietly.

She pauses, then inhales, not looking at Lup’s face as she tries to figure out what to say. She stares at the dirty tile between their feet, and at the scuffed leather of her and Lup’s boots. She then looks up, looking at her fingers, dark against the olive of Lup’s freckled hands and she lets out a shaky laugh.

She's fine, she realizes. The shock and embarrassment of it are over now. All that's left is the fierceness of her affection for her friends and the quietly burning ache that she associated with Lup and Lup alone.

She struggles for a moment, like she always does at times like this. She wants Lup to know she's fine, she's okay, that of all the things they have to worry about, Lup shouldn't worry about her. But she's so glad she does.

She curls her fingers gently around Lup's and squeezes briefly. She gives a careful smile, looking Lup in the eye.

“You know, I thought, I thought he’d just go away,” she says simply. “I mean, come on, what part of ‘I like wine’ says, ‘please try to fuck me’?”

Lup’s nose scrunches up as she grimaces, then snorts.  “The _fuck_? Y’know what, why should we put up with that when we have to put up with so much other shit these days? We’re trying our best to save their sorry asses and they don’t even know, so, yeah, punch ‘em in the mouth.”

“It was the throat,” Lucretia corrects.

Lup laughs, shaking her head as she snickers; Lucretia smiles back, reaching up to rub at her cheeks with the back of her hand.

Lup reaches out and smoothes the collar of Lucretia's tee. “C'mon. Wash your face and then, I'm going to teach you to play some pool. No one's gonna bother you with me, okay?”

“No, I don't want to bother—”

“It's not a bother. We need a third person and, frankly, Barold is shit at pool. He has the shittiest poker face I have ever seen. We need someone who can _act_ , dammit.”

Lucretia laughs at this, and shakes her head. “I'm sorry in advance if I’m even shittier.”

Lup pulls her to her chest, laying her cheek on Lucretia's hair. She holds her tight, unwilling to let her go.

“Don't be sorry, Lu,” she murmurs. They both know she's speaking of so much more than poker-faces and pool rules. She curls her fingers into Lucretia's shirt. “And look, if you still feel bad, just blame me: I leant you the curb stomping boots, they just possessed you.”

Lucretia laughs again, her shoulders shaking as she does her little half snort-giggle that makes Lup feel proud. She can tell Lucretia is still holding back something—but then, when isn't she?

She pulls back, beaming at Lucretia. “You good?”

“Yes, thank you,” she murmurs. She pauses, and swallows. She reaches out and puts a hand on Lup’s forearms, smiling. “You know, I've never had— I've never had anyone back me up before, not before you guys. It means.... it means a lot. I just, thank you for all of it, not just this, but _all_ of it. I—I just wanted to tell you that, so you know.”

Lup wants to pull Lucretia back into a hug. She forgets, more than she should, what Lucretia was like before it all started, twenty some odd years ago. Even now, she forgets that Lucretia is bright and witty and able to stand her own ground now.

It’s so, so easy to forget about Lucretia, she realizes with a sudden pang of guilt.

She’s so used to Lucretia just being _around_ , being there to knock on her door late at night, being at the breakfast table with tea already made up for her if Barry or Taako haven't beat Lucretia to it, to snort at her bad jokes while everyone else just rolls their eyes now. Lucretia who had come to her years and years before and grabbed her hands tightly and whispered her thanks with eyes damp with tears, pushing a carefully noted and bound copy of the lives of the souls Lup had saved into her hands, who had somehow managed to see her and Barry from years away, who she’s seen setting up their crewmates for pranks that somehow no one has figured out yet, her lips curled into the most mischievous grin Lup has ever seen (including her own face), who has mastered the flat-delivered, back-handed compliment so well that it goes over nearly everyone’s heads for  _at least_ five minutes before they realize she’s insulted them (and by that time, Lucretia has wandered off to do her own thing). 

She is _there_ , and she is present, and she is irreplaceable.

How could she forget? How could she forget just how blindingly obvious it is that to her, they are Lucretia’s biggest treasures?

But, _god_ , it’s so easy to forget.

It’s so easy to just let her slide into the background, to forget her dry humor and dramatic eye rolls from across the room and how her hair falls in her face at three AM, both hands moving just as lightening fast as she and Barry throw quantum physics theorems at each other, at the cusp of a breakthrough they need transcribed because they’ll never remember what they said after they sleep for fifteen hours, burnt out from math and magic and endless what-ifs. Forget how shy she is, even still, wracked with moments of absolute anxiety as she teeters on the fringes of the group, ever-quiet, ever-watching. Forgets how beautiful she is, cheeks soft and teeth bright as she grins, face more expressive than Lup ever would dreamed it would be; the bounce of her bright, white-blond curls as she sketches out maps and charts and the endless seas of their expansive journey on butcher paper on the floor. The elegance of her wrists and hands, and how she stands straight at all times, even when she’s relaxed, shoulders flat and posture as graceful as a dancers’, even when she’s slumped, exhausted, in a chair. How much fierceness she can channel through that straight spine and petite frame, their last and quietest member and their last stand in so many worlds.  

It strikes her, and it strikes her just as hard as it always does in the moments when she truly, honestly, notices Lucretia.

Barry thinks it’s funny, she knows, how it happens; he snorts and he teases and he pokes fun at her. Lup is happy that Barry’s comfortable enough to tease her about her skip-record crush,but she thinks that in a shitty bathroom, right after Lucretia decked a man for trying to pick her up, is a bad moment for her to remember how much affection she has for Lucretia in those moments where it’s all so crystal clear and forefront.

She watches as Lucretia cups cold water from the tap and rinses her face off, wiping it dry with questionably gray paper towels. Her mouth is dry and she feels like she’s two stumbling steps away from saying something stupid, so she clears her throat.

“Merle has a point though,” Lup says. “Two for two on bar fights, Lu. You are _too_ badass for us.”

“Please,” Lucretia sighs, rolling her eyes. “I think I have to try to fight a two story bear to be considered badass.”

Lup laughs, loud enough that it rings through the shitty tiled bathroom. She throws her arm around Lucretia’s waist and squeezes her. “There ain’t no party like an IPRE party, and it ain’t an IPRE party until Lucretia’s started a bar fight. Two for fuckin’ two! _Tradition_!”

“ _Geesh_ ,” Lucretia groans, shaking her head as she laughs. Lup leads her out of the bathroom and back into the bar, and if Lucretia had any remaining worries, they’re dispelled as Lup leans her cheek against her head, still laughing at her own terrible jokes.

Lup is solid at her side, tall and comforting as she walks them back to the pool table. Taako grins toothily at them both and waves them over.

Magnus pushes himself up off of where he's leaning on the table, beaming. “Hey there, Miss Barfight, who just outright murdered a man and curb stomped the corpse,” he laughs, patting Lucretia on the shoulder.

“Magnus, I just punched him,” Lucretia sighs. “And I think there has to be an actual curb involved … Okay, _anyway_.”

“Yeah, so, I squared everything away; no harm no foul for us. Bartender even was impressed, says if we want to know anything weird, we should go down to the diner, not real specific but okay, and ask for a Maggie. Barry and Capt'nport are making plans already.”

“Holy shit!” Lup laughs. “Way to go, Lu!”

Magnus ruffles her hair and sinks back into the crowd. Lucretia feels her face heat as Lup hugs her a bit closer, her hand a bit higher on her waist than it was before. She doesn’t think Lup really notices, but she does.

There's a moment of silent communication between Lup and Taako, Taako's eyes flicking from Lup's arm around her waist to Lup— Lucretia pretends that she hasn't seen. Whatever they're discussing without words is concerning her, and she’s not entirely sure she wants to know.

“Okay, so pool time!” Lup says, letting go of Lucretia and rubbing her hands together. “So what we’re playing is eight-ball—unless you’ve changed the game on me?” she calls out to Taako.

“Hell no,” Taako sighs. “I did it once! _Once_ , and you’ve never let me forget!”

“Because we fuckin’ lost,” Lup shoots back, earning a couple of snickers from their opponents. She eyes them, grinning easily.

Lucretia watches on as Lup regales the tale of the game of eight-ball turned straight ball during a trip to the bar, using her hands as she talks. Or rather, hand. She gestures and mimes as she talks, drawing the audience’s attention to herself with one hand, while the other settles easily at the small of Lucretia’s back. Lucretia feels her ears burn, but she forces herself not to draw too much attention to it; it’s important, she realizes, that Lup is telling such a grand story, drawing every gaze on herself. 

Their opponents are looking at her, and not at Taako. Which, honestly, Lucretia thinks, is their mistake. Never, never, never take your eyes off of either of them, she thinks.

“Of course, my friend here,” Lup says, and Lucretia nearly splutters on the emphasis on the word ‘friend’; “Has never played! So I’m gonna be showing her how, so everybody else, go play Taako.”

There’s a few eye rolls and a few smirks, but a few stick around Lup’s table.

“Yeah, we’re not too sure she really doesn’t know how to play,” one of them says, eyebrow raised.

Lup shrugs. “Well, if you wanna wipe the floor with a beginner, it’s your deal. Anyway, Lu. So eight-ball.”

Lucretia looks up at Lup, who turns towards her, hand now on her hip. The touching is one hundred percent deliberate, Lucretia realizes. She’s not sure what to make of it, but it’s not unpleasant or even unwanted.

“So, obviously there are eight balls—ok no, I’m fucking with you, you have eyes and can see there’s more. But the short of it is that you want to pocket eight balls in total,” Lup explains; “We flip a coin to see who breaks and from there, you’re just sort of trying to shoot them in. I’ll guide you along.”

Lucretia nods, chewing on her lip. “Okay…Am I aiming for anything in particular?”

Lup nods, beaming at her. Lucretia watches as her teeth catch the light, cheeks pink with drink and excitement, and her heart hammers in her chest. The whole night is too much of a rollercoaster, and she can’t keep up, so she lets Lup just usher her along to the table.

“So, based on what you shoot in after the break, that’s what you’re trying to pocket, and once you’ve done all of that, you go for the eight ball. I’ll keep an eye on fouls for you, but for now, just focus on hitting your balls. Don’t worry about it too much.”

“Okay,” Lucretia says slowly.

“All right!” Lup says, guiding her towards the table. She keeps her hand on Lucretia at all times; part of it is just because Lucretia looks overwhelmed. Part of it _is_ part of the show as Taako sets up for the scam, the real fun—she has to draw attention to herself, but usually she just does it by talking. But most of it, if she’s being entirely honest, is because she wants to keep close.

Lucretia doesn’t push her away or admonish her—and Lup feels a little guilty for taking advantage of that. Is she any better than the guy from before, doing this? But Lucretia leans into her, just a bit, their hips jostling as their opponents set up the rack for their game. Lup looks down, watches the slight flutter of her eyelashes, the way her lips move silently as she repeats back the limited instructions.

She swallows hard and leans against Lucretia, feeling the other woman press back. Lup knows she’s already lost—not only the game, but against the struggle of noticing and forgetting. She doubts she’s going to be able to let Lucretia slip to the background anymore.

It was like that with Barry, too, she thinks wistfully. She just woke up one day, and there he was, the same as he always was—big and goofy and incredibly dorky, with glasses that slipped down his nose and nervous hands that almost seemed too big for him despite him being tall and stocky—and she loved him entirely.

She’d loved him in small pieces before—the way he talked, or how he would run into things because he was too busy doing something else— for a long time before she woke up and realized it and loved the whole of him, but that’s just how it was.

Sometimes, you just wake up one day, and everything changes. Paradigm shifts, they’re called, and Lup prefers to think of things in stark contrasts—especially these days, where everything else is murky and dark and gray.

Just like the lavender sunrise of that world had back-lit Barry, who had looked up at her and smiled at her like she’d hung the very sun and stars, papers and equations spread out around him in a loose-leafed circle, and changed her entire world, Lup is hit with that same feeling again, that paradigm shift of heart, all over for the second time: the adoration and respect and overwhelming fondness.

Lucretia looks at her like that too, like she has the whole world at her fingertips and stars on her tongue. Lucretia looks at all of them like that, sometimes, and maybe that’s why Lup has missed the sheer breadth of it for so long. But Lup can’t miss it now, now that it’s shining so starkly on her face that it lights up the whole bar.

Lucretia’s front and center now, lit in the foreground of Lup’s attention. Lup's attention is wholly focused on Lucretia's shining bright smile and nervous laughter and careful attention.

It blinds her and swallows her whole, and she wants and she needs.

She loves and loves and she loves, unconstrained by time or expectations or anything else but her own abilities.

And she believes in that feeling, she has always believed in that feeling, the love that guides her on, the belief that guides her hand when it's too dark to think, too desolate to do anything but hold onto that one light.

And isn't she lucky, she thinks, isn't she blessed, that her one light had become two, had become three, had become all of them, together? In the foreground of her mind, bright and shining, attention centered just on them, her bright lights. 

She thinks it’s a miracle she doesn’t lean down for a kiss, because god, she wants to now.

Instead, she gives a meandering half-explanation of the rules for eight-ball, fudges the coin toss so they’ll end up going first, and sets the game into motion. Behind her, she hears Taako going on without her, laughing and shouting as he jostles easily from game to game, no doubt racking up frustrated players and loot and bets. 

Strangely enough, she can’t bring herself to care about anything but the feeling burning in the back of her chest and the feeling of her hand on Lucretia’s back as she ushers her forward to the head of the table to start off the game. She knows that Taako knows, and that he’s giving her free reign to make her own decisions; so she does.

“Ok so, to shoot you have to keep your feet on the ground,” Lup murmurs, stepping back. “Hold it, like, um… not like that. Here.”

Lup slips behind her, reaching around to position her hand over Lucretia’s. “So, you hold it like _this_ , and then, lean forward, so your arm is level with the cue.”

Lucretia gives a nervous laugh, and then gulps as Lup’s hair tickles her chin. She’s almost afraid to breathe. Her neck burns and her stomach flips into her throat. “Ah, like…?”

Her back brushes against Lup, every inch of her spine suddenly burning with the contact. She’s afraid to move anymore, but Lup’s fingers press against her stomach, just lightly—the barest touch of fingers. But it’s enough to jolt her, make her lean the rest of the way over, feet squared on the sticky floor, and her entire body pressed back up against Lup’s, who doesn’t step back or shuffle away.

“A bit more,” Lup says. “Okay, so now you just, just go for it!”

Lucretia feels her pulse in her jaw, in her cheeks, against the back of her ears. Her lungs betray her need to breathe, and she exhales in a shaky sort of way that sounds way too loud to her. She inhales and Lup’s hair tickles her again and Lucretia just sort of wants to dissolve into a pile of goo.

“Um. You can,” Lucretia stammers as someone wolf-whistles at them. She thinks it’s actually _Taako_ , who should learn to mind his own business, but probably never will. “You can step back, uh, people are going to think… they’re gonna…”

She loses track about what people are going to think, or even what she’s thinking, because Lup just lays her cheek against Lucretia’s, thumb tapping against the inside of Lucretia’s palm. “I’m not concerned about what _people_ think, Lu,” she whispers. “Just you, right now. So. You gonna break the rack or what?”

“Oh,” Lucretia stammers, finding her voice strangely high pitched. “Oh, oh yeah. That—oh.”

Lup laughs low in her ear and pats the back of her hand. “Go for it.”

Lucretia pulls back and shoots, surprising herself by hitting a clean break like she’s seen Lup and Taako make before. (Maybe not quite as clean—she’s seen them somehow win a game in one shot, and she’s still not sure how they do it.)

“That’s my Lu,” Lup says, and Lucretia gives an involuntary shiver.

That’s it, Lucretia decides—she’s going to die, two weeks into the cycle, in a dirty dive bar with Taako shouting at them and right after she’d punched a guy for touching her knee when Lup is plastered to her back, cheek nestled against the crook of her neck.

She’s just… she’s going to die, and she’s absolutely fine with it. More than fine. Bring on the death, she’ll see them all next cycle and it won’t be a loss at all. 

“So you can shoot again,” Lup says; “Since you _miraculously_ didn't foul.”

Lucretia gulps and nods. “From there?” she asks, pointing towards the cue ball.

“Go for it. Try to hit something into a pocket; I think you can make one.”

“Listen, I don’t know what I’m doing,” Lucretia mutters.

Lup pulls away, hands skimming against her in ways that make Lucretia feel both feverish and cold. Lup hooks her fingers around Lucretia’s, gently pulling her along. “Make the shot from here,” she instructs, tapping the side of the table. 

“Now, we allow coaching, but don’t take her shots for her,” one of the players snickers, watching as Lup sets herself beside Lucretia, hand on her back in an obviously protective gesture.

“Aw, now, she’s doing it all on her own.”

“I mean, I’d say that’s not coaching,” the other player laughs, a woman with dark eyes and dark lipstick; “That’s interference right there.”

“Lu, am I interfering with your playing?” Lup asks sweetly, pressing her cheek against Lucretia’s jaw, her arm snaking back around Lucretia’s waist, her hand flat against her side, fingers spanning the curve of her waist. Her thumb taps a small rhythm against her back, which turns into a slow circle and Lucretia wants nothing more but to close her eyes and stay in the moment.

Both players laugh. “She’s not gonna say yes, sister!”

Lucretia clears her throat, face burning as she thinks their opponents are quite right; even if she knew what she was doing, and Lup’s insistence on pressing up against her like a cat _was_ interfering with the hypothetical game of pool where she knows what she’s doing, she wouldn’t be inclined to say something that makes Lup stop. If anything, she wishes she knew the magic word that would make her _continue_.

Make her continue, maybe into a booth in one of the dark corners where they could… She stops the train of thought with her face and stomach hot.

She also knows that both of their opponents are being so indulgent because they know not only are they going to win, but because they think that—maybe it’s some form of voyeurism, she thinks, but she knows that they think that she and Lup are a _thing_.

Her heart rests very unsteadily on her tongue.

It’s the farthest thing from the truth, but that’s what it looks like. And it’s one way of diverting other’s attention from her, to think she’s involved with Lup. She can’t bring herself to look over her shoulder at the table where the rest of her crewmates are sitting, doesn’t want to think about the repercussions of whatever happens—if there are any. Lup is her friend and Lup is doing this to protect her, and she’s never going to get another chance to soak in the attention and the affection like this.

And after all, didn’t Lup say she didn’t care what other people thought? Why should she?

“No,” Lucretia laughs, pressing her cheek back. Lup gives her a gentle nudge, lips curling into a satisfied grin.

“See, guys, it’s all fine!” Lup laughs. “But since you’re insisting, I’ll let her shoot on her own.”

Lucretia laughs, and squares up to take the shot from the place Lup designated. She’s not too surprised when she fouls out and the one who’d teased about interference steps up for their turn.

She’s not even disappointed—and Lup doesn’t look like it either. She simply folds her arms back around Lucretia’s waist and stomach, chin resting on the top of her head. Lucretia leans back into it, watching as the two they’re playing line up and sink one, two, three balls in a row. Finally, they foul, and Lup unfolds herself, leaving Lucretia feeling a bit cold and a little more than hungry for the next handover.

She watches, closer than she’s been. She watches like she has for a long time, now, not for the actions or the meanings behind them, but just to watch Lup move. She’s always paid attention to her, first because all of her crewmates were interesting to her, then because Lup had blown her away with her honesty and cautious balance of ideals and image, the evocation specialist who wanted to preserve and save and build. Her wildness and bluntness and intelligence captivated her—and Lucretia had learned fairly early that she was not the only one who felt that way. 

Sure, the team loved Lup—she was who made Taako interact with the rest of them, the bridge between their island and the team. Lup acts as both their glue and their fire-starter, their moral compass who isn't above kicking down doors. But Lucretia _knew_ , she knew before anyone. She thinks she even managed to know before Barry and Lup did, simply because she felt the same way. She saw, and she understood.

It's an old thing. Sometimes it doesn’t even hurt—how could it, when she'd had years to prepare, had eyes to see? She is not anyone's light and life and love, she is just there, their fly on the wall. She was the impartial third party, she is the recorder of their victories and losses, and the barrier that keeps them safe until all is lost save one, to start them all anew. She’s just a background character in their little play, after all.

The wound is old. Just a scar that aches on rainy days, but it would be a lie to say it never bothered her. It rises in her throat like bitter water at times, the want and the hurt. It hurts and hurts and hurts, but she does nothing, because how could she? How could she? Lup is so happy and loves Barry with all of herself.

Lucretia can barely even fathom something that would urge her to take that from them. She loves just watching, loves to watch how they interact, how Barry can coax Lup into laughter even when Taako can’t, loves listening to them postulate and theorize and gather all the knowledge they can. Loves walking past the galley to find them cooking together, loves it all. Lucretia loves Lup best when she’s happy and laughing, and that’s when she’s with Barry.

So she lets herself forget, pushes it down and ignores it. But she watches, and she watches hungrily, always. Ever quiet, ever alone, she watches them all.

Lup leans forward, feet flat and squared as she draws the cue back, tongue wetting her lips as she closes one eye, sighting the ball. She pulls back and shoots, cleanly knocking two of their balls into pockets. She circles the table, easy and assured, winking at Lucretia as she passes and brushes a bit of Lucretia’s hair from her face.

Lucretia rolls her eyes and smiles at the gesture, face warm as she crosses her arms and watches.

“Hey, I’ll be back,” Taako says, clapping her on the shoulder. “You had sangria, yeah?”

“Yeah—oh, you don’t have to,” she says, but Taako waves at her dismissively as he slips back into the milling people towards the bar.

There’s a brief lull in the sound, people’s voices and the clack of pool balls louder than the ambient music for a few seconds as the bands change over. The new one is louder, a bit rougher around the edges, and the crowds loosen up as they go group towards the stage.

Lup pockets a few more balls before she finally fouls, their opponents giving her the stink-eye as she slips her arm back around Lucretia’s waist.

“Hey, where’d Taako go?”

“To the bar,” Lucretia answers, and Lup nods, watching the cue shot.

“Hey, foul, bad hit—” Lup calls, and then gently pushes Lucretia forward.

Lucretia in turn, makes the same foul and hands the play back over to their opponents, nestling back against Lup’s side as Taako comes up to them, two mismatched cups in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other.

“Hey, so I won free drinks, here you go, loser,” Taako says, handing Lup one of the glasses. “And this, Miss Kickass—”

“Not you too,” Lucretia groans.

“The bartender put this in a special cup _just_ for you,” Taako snickers, handing her a very obviously plastic cup. “Try to keep all the contents in it, y’hear? I’m going to go let the others they have a free round.”  

“You know that means he talked the bartender into giving you a plastic cup,” Lup says after a moment, watching Taako weave into the crowd. “Like, honest. He did, ten bucks.”

Lucretia snorts into her red plastic cup, wine splashing back up onto her lip. “Oh gods,” she laughs. “No one is letting me live this down, are they?”

“Not a chance, fight club,” Lup says, reaching out and brushing her thumb over Lucretia’s damp lip. Lucretia freezes, breath halted as Lup sticks her thumb in her mouth, tongue darting out to lap up the probably nonexistent wine there.

Lucretia’s head spins. Lup’s grin is wild and mischievous and everything Lucretia could ever ask for.

“It tastes good,” Lup says simply.

“You… you’re welcome to have some,” Lucretia says. Something in her, the flipping in her chest, pushes out her next words: “But only if I can have some of yours.”

“Hm? Yeah, it’s just rum and soda, so yeah,” Lup says.

“Hey, you two, we’ve just fouled three times and you didn’t call it—are you even still playing? Like, get a room or play pool.”

“Oh, shit! Fuck you guys,” Lup says, handing Lucretia her drink. “Give me a second, and I’ll trash these guys and—and let’s find a seat, yeah?”

“Oh, I’m not sure, I think I’d rather play some more,” Lucretia says lightly. She takes a careful sip of Lup’s drink, her face warm as she watches Lup square up to shoot.

Lup just laughs and shoots.

* * *

Taako finds the others easily—they’ve moved closer to the pool tables, all of them gathered to one side of their rickety table where they have a clear view of Lup and Lucretia’s terrible, awful, no-good, overly-obvious flirting. Taako rolls his eyes.

“You guys are depraved,” he says.

Magnus just laughs. “Where are our drinks? You got a free round, didn’t you—you wouldn’t have gotten shit for them otherwise.”

“I’m not your fucking waitress,” Taako shoots back, rolling his eyes. “I’m only over here because I got bored of winning and Lup is otherwise… occupied.”

“What’s up with that, anyway?”

“What does it look like?”

“Uh. Well. It looks like something really raunchy is about to happen,” Magnus snickers behind his hand.

Taako leans up against the table, taking a sip of his beer. “ _Yeaaah_. She is just laying it on hard. Like fuckin’ butter. It’s gross.”

“I only pray that it wasn’t this bad when it was me,” Barry says, rolling his eyes as he watches Lup reach out and ruffle Lucretia’s hair. “Geesh.” 

“Actually, you know what, and I never thought I would say this, Barold, but you actually had more of a clue when Lup was flirting with you than Lucretia does. Gods help her; she looks like she’s going to die. Merle, start praying for her now. It's a damn wonder she's still standing.”

Barry laughs, shaking his head. “Yikes.”

“Okay, okay, okay, maybe I’m dense—”

_“You are.”_

“Har, har,” Merle grumbles. “But, aren’t you two, _yanno_?” he asks, pointing between Barry and Lup in several quick motions.

“Yeah?”

“And you don’t have an issue? Is it because she’s doing it for a scam?”

Barry raises his eyebrows and looks over at Taako, like he’s asking _you wanna explain or should I?_

Taako examines his nails, and Barry rolls his eyes.

“It’s not, she’s going to _lose_ the game I set up because she’s too busy flirting her ass off,” Taako says. “I don’t even think she’s paying attention. I could win all the free drinks in the house and she would still be thirsty.”

“Yeah,” Barry agrees. “I almost feel bad for Lucretia. Almost.”

“I’m still lost,” Merle says. “Anyone else lost?”

Magnus raises an eyebrow and Davenport simply shrugs. 

“No, I don’t have any problems,” Barry says to Merle. “I’m not going to stop Lup from doing what she wants. I was the one who pointed it out to her, in any case. That she had it bad for Lucretia, too,” he adds when Merle just looks at him.

“Why?”

“Why not?” Barry asks. “We have more than enough time as far as we figure, and it doesn’t change how we feel about each other. Oh geesh Ta—Taako—Taako, stop that,” he stammers, turning pink as Taako mimes gagging at him. 

“Never,” Taako laughs. “Like, I don’t give five shits, but I swear if I have to sit through another year of endless pining again, I’m gone. Catch me next cycle, y’all.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Barry complains as everyone else laughs.

Taako rolls his eyes. “That bad,” he repeats, cocking his fingers in the air, “That bad. Barold. Barry. _Barrington_.”

Barry sinks low in his chair, fiddling with a napkin. “Not that bad,” he says, halfheartedly.

“Uh- _huh_.”

“Okay, but do you really, really and truly think there won’t be awkward pining?” Barry shoots back, changing the subject.

“No, it’s fuckin’ Lucretia she’s flirting with. She’s got a read on everyone except herself,” Taako says. “I bet you another round of beer that it takes at least five years for them to get past this touch and flirt stage.”

“Yikes,” Magnus sighs. “Maybe if we just… interfered a bit…?”

Taako snorts. “Yeah, that works like, never.”

“Okay, but what happens if Lucretia’s not into it?” Merle asks.

“Well, if Lup gets punched in the face, I’m the one who’s going to end up dealing with it,” Barry says dryly. “Lucretia is plenty able to handle herself if she has to.”

“Okay, but,” Magnus says suddenly. “What do you bet that the guy she punched out ends up being important?”

“That, like. Never happens,” Taako says uneasily.

“Don't be ridiculous.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you're right.”

There’s a bit of awkward silence, then:

“Well, I just lost _that_ fucking bet,” Taako says, watching in shock. 

Barry claps slowly for a few seconds. “Doesn’t mean you still can’t put down money on awkward pining though. They’re not using words.”

“Just their tongues,” Merle cackles.

Taako groans, covering his face with one hand. “I’m drinking all your free rounds, fuck.”

Everyone is quick to scurry to the bar after that.


End file.
